Brooke

Last Monday was one of the craziest days we’ve had in a while.  Allow me to elaborate. 

(Whoa.  I just finished typing this and it’s kind of long.  This means by brother, Abe, likely won’t be reading.  The day involved toilet water, a rainstorm, and lots of blood.  Does that make you want to keep reading?)

As we were getting ready in the morning, I heard dripping.  I soon saw that water was dripping through the ceiling in our hall.  This has happened once before when we first moved in.  Our neighbor’s toilet overflowed in the middle of the night, flooded her bathroom, and dripped down to us.  We suspected the same thing had happened this time.

I called our neighbor who was 30 minutes away.  She hurried home and we inspected her bathroom.  There was some water in it, but not a large amount.  Then we noticed that she had water dripping through her ceiling.  So we trekked upstairs to our third floor neighbor.  We woke him up and he went to check his bathroom.   A few minutes later he came out and exclaimed that his bathroom was totally flooded.  At least we figured out the cause of that problem.  I’m not sure I want to know what kind of water damage we may have between our floors.

I went off to a meeting and when I got back, Dallas was loading the girls in the car for a picnic in the canyon.  He had a hankering to commune with nature.  We drove to Bridal Veil Falls, enjoyed a pleasant picnic, watched the girls play in the water, and started walking up the trail.  However, storm clouds rolled in and cut the walk short.  Dallas wanted to keep walking, but I didn’t want to get stuck further from our car in a rainstorm.

As we were heading back to the car, Brooke fell and scraped both knees.  Crying ensued, as did a mad scramble to find a band-aid.  Luckily, some fellow hikers had a band-aid they donated to our cause.

As we were driving home, Dallas insisted the storm was passing.  He stopped at a park so Brooke could play.  Between her scraped knees, the falling rain, and the blowing wind, not much playing happened.  Finally, Dallas came to terms with the fact that his perfect afternoon in the mountains just wasn’t meant to be.

We went home.  After naps and dinner, Dallas once again suggested a walk.  The bad weather had passed, so I agreed.  We decided to walk along the Provo River Trail until we got to one of the parks. Before we left, Dallas found the first-aid kit that is supposed to be in our car (but wasn’t) and he put it back in the car – just in case.

After a nice, 20-minute walk, Brooke spotted a playground and raced off.  We watched her and Caroline swing and slide and were just about to admit to each other that the day wasn’t a total loss – we were able to have a nice time outside after all – when Brooke fell off a little ladder and hit the back of her head on one of the metal rungs.

Dallas immediately scooped her up and started comforting her.  I packed Caroline up in the stroller and turned around to talk to Brooke.  It was then that I saw blood running down her hair and staining her shirt.  Some guy at the park offered us a piece of gauze to staunch the bleeding.  We took it and held it to her head.  We couldn’t really see the injury because her hair was in the way, and it was all matted with blood.  Of course, we had our first-aid kit waiting for us in the car – the car that was about 20 minutes away.  Curses!

We began walking back to the car.  By this time, the gauze was completely soaked and all of our clothes had blood splatters, but Brooke had calmed down a bit.  It was then that she looked at her hands and saw they had blood all over them.  Another explosion of tears and sobs erupted from her.

We rounded the bend and came upon a fire station.  Dallas said that we should go in and ask them for help.  I didn’t know if this kind of thing was allowed, just traipsing into a fire station asking for medical advice, but why not?  Fire fighters are in the business of helping citizens, and we sure needed help!

We rang the doorbell and they buzzed us in.  A fireman took one look at all of us soaking in blood and asked what had happened.  We explained the situation and asked if we could wash up a little bit.  He took us to a fire truck and called another fire fighter in to help us.  They washed off Brooke’s head (and hands!) and tried to see what was happening.  They said that it looked like the bleeding had stopped, so they didn’t think stitches were needed.  However, they recommended that we take Brooke to the ER to check for head injuries.  One fireman said his son did a similar thing  and they thought he was going to be okay, but it turned out he had fractured his skull.  That wasn’t exactly the kind of story I wanted to hear at the moment.

So, now we needed to get to the hospital and our car was still a mile away.  The firemen offered to drive us, but we didn’t really want the price tag that came along with a lift from them.  The hospital was actually only a block or two away, so we decided to just walk straight there.

As we were walking to the ER, Dallas saw an InstaCare.  He suggested going there, thinking that it would be less expensive to go to an InstaCare than the ER.  We decided to try it.  We entered the office and I’m sure we were a sight to behold.  Caroline was screaming in the stroller (by this time it was WAY past her bedtime), Brooke was sniffling, and there was a smattering of blood all over us, just for good measure.

We related our story, and they said they could help us there.  Luckily, there was only one other man ahead of us, so we were seen quickly.  Dallas took Caroline to go get the car while I took Brooke in to see the doctor.  After cleaning her up a little more, I was able to see what was happening in the back of her head.  She had a huge goose egg and a slit where the blood had been coming out.  He tugged a little on it and said that he didn’t think staples or stitches were necessary.  I was SO GLAD we avoided stitches.  I’m sure Brooke was too.  He checked her balance and her eyes and said that she didn’t seem to have a concussion, so he sent us on our way with instructions to wake her up once in the night.

After baths, putting the girls to bed, and doing a load of laundry, Dallas and I were more than ready to fall into bed ourselves and put an end to our unlucky day.

Yesterday we took advantage of Thanksgiving Point’s Two-Buck Tuesday and went to the Dinosaur Museum.  A good time was had by all.

We started off waiting in line for about thirty minutes.  That was a bit of a drag, but Brooke made this face –

and both girls climbed on these rocks –

so the fun had already begun.

Then we went inside and took pictures next to dinosaur bones, played with the hands-on activities, and ended the morning with ice cream!

We had such a fun day together as a family.  I loved every second of it.  I can hardly wait for next Tuesday to come!